Tuesday, January 14, 2014

When I was a kid and used the argument for wanting to engage in the latest fad that “all the kids are doing it,” my parents would ask me if all the kids were jumping off of ten-story buildings would I join them in that activity as well. Actually, I would probably have been the ringleader of an asinine stunt like that, but…

Anyway, liberal Obama loyalists are now arguing that since Congress has corrupted the “advise and consent” provision of the presidential appointments process then the president should follow their example and corrupt the “recess appointment” provision of the constitution in return. Sort of a “meet evil with evil, only when we do it it’s not evil” approach. It’s not unique to liberals, both sides feel that things are wrong only when the other side does them.

Democrats, for instance, blocked voting on presidential appointments when George Bush was in the White House, and Republicans complained bitterly about that and called it “ridiculous partisan politics.” Now that a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans are blocking presidential nominations and Democrats are not merely calling that “ridiculous partisan politics,” they are claiming that it is criminal and a violation of the constitution. Unlike when they did it, since they were merely keeping America safe from Republicans.

So Obama loyalists, who complained loudly when George Bush made recess appointments, say that Obama should make many more recess appointments, including when Congress is not actually in recess but is merely on a holiday break and is holding periodic sessions to establish that they are not in a recess. They claim that Obama manipulating the recess appointment process is okay, because Congress has corrupted the appointments process with their partisanship.

Their point seems to be that if one branch of government is broken, the solution is to break another branch to balance that problem. Solve one problem by creating another problem.

If the left front tire on your car is flat, are you going to make things right by flattening the right front tire? Of course not, but this is the solution offered by Obama loyalists. They do not suggest that we need to find a way to fix the flat left front tire, they suggest we need to make things worse by flattening the right front tire.

If one branch of government has become corrupted, you do not make for better governance by corrupting a second branch to “balance” the corruption of the first.

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About Me

I grew up in the Air Force, and served in diesel-electric submarines during the Cold War. I worked in the steel industry until it sort of died in the 80's, then in landscape management until recently, when health issues demanded retirement.

I believe government should intrude in the lives of its citizens to the minumum possible degree, but I also know that it must be big enough to
"get the job done." To me the job of government includes concepts that are usually thought of as liberal such as stringent regulation of necessary monopolies, regulating all business enough to prevent it from becoming predatory, providing necessary
comfort to citizens who are rendered destitute by calamity outside their reasonable control, and protection of our environment and natural resources.